by Kim Kane
PJ DAVIS
Acting Detective Sergeant 29902
From: Celia Beasley [email protected]
Tuesday 17 May 7:15 PM
Hi Alice
Hallie may be back home, but The Area is still in lockdown. Mrs Stephens from Pastoral Care came to speak to our class this morning and said that we have to make a real effort not to get ‘too enmeshed’ in the details of the Hallie Knight case as they come out in the news. By ‘enmeshed’ it was clear she meant surfing the internet for details of creepy possible suspects, but I just can’t help it. It’s dark so early, we’re stuck inside and the weather has been horrible – the sort of wind that takes off roofs and smashes pots, leaving chunks of dirt and terracotta on the terrace. I am definitely going to sleep with Cleo again tonight, even if she does kick me in the face.
Speaking of Cleo, she’s still frantically taking photos. Yesterday she and her friend, Carmella, tried to get a dust sample from a suss-looking car and tonight she made me walk down the lane behind the back of our house taking shots of crushed cans and broken padlocks in the gutter. I tried to explain how helpless I felt knowing that everything and nothing could be a clue, and then I thought, ‘Why burst her bubble?’ Imagine if she did catch the killer with one of her shots – well at least put the police onto him. She’d be a hero and might even get famous. That is the kind of thing I’d want to be famous for. That, or for writing a story that’s turned into a major motion film, or for developing a cure for breast cancer, or for marrying a prince. Not for being on a packet of pasta in Coles. That’s not small-dog-owning celebrity, not at all. And the reward is massive – $250,000. Cleo could buy a Nunderpants factory for that. Or at least bail out Dad’s business.
Mum and Dad have been having more money fights and there is no sign things are improving. Dad lost five more clients this week and Mum found five more grey hairs. She also sold her Joy Hester painting the other day that she got from my grandmother when she died. It hung on the wall at Granny’s and the girl looked down at us while we ate, and I used to imagine I was her and I could go back to my book at any time and not have to eat my asparagus or listen to my parents argue.
There was a strange man in our backyard this afternoon. I asked Mum what it was about and she said we’d find out in good time which means mind your own business.
Over and out.
CC xx
PS I thought I’d send you this PDF of the pasta pack. You can see I’ve been shoved into the back row. Mum has never looked happier than she looks holding that bowl of spaghetti. We didn’t get to eat it because they spray it with glue to make the capsicum pieces shiny and because it took the stylists about 12 goes to get the pasta in a twist like that. Even our outfits were borrowed. You heard it here first, Alice: Ads are for fakes.
From: Alice King [email protected]
Tuesday 17 May 10:03 PM
Dear CC,
That pasta pack is cool as, although your mum looks nothing like I imagined. I thought she’d be blonde with pumped-up lips and bleached teeth. I’ve stuck the photo right here on the pin board in my study cubicle, and when I finish an email and press ‘send’, I’ll be able to wave to you in the photo. Cheap thrills here, I’m afraid!
I wish I’d been nicer to Hallie Knight on the tram. I’m sure we would’ve been friends if she didn’t always have that stupid cello getting in the way. Maybe the murderer used to see her struggling home with it and that’s why she stuck out in the crowd? Who’d have thought learning an instrument could be so dangerous.
I spoke to Dad again tonight. Tess’s gone and got herself expelled from school. Apparently she graffiti’d the front fence – probably just a dumb tag. If it were me, I’d write something cool like, ‘NUNS GET NONE’. The last thing Dad needs now he’s technically a single dad is having broody Tess slumping about all day. WHY doesn’t he just let me come HOME? I may have orchestrated Johnny’s death but apart from that, I’m far less trouble. Mum’s still the same apparently. In bed, crying a lot and not taking calls.
Anika invited me to the farm again, but this time I’m going to tell them I’ve become vegetarian so that I don’t have to eat any pets. I really hope her brother doesn’t think he can hit on me like he did with Leilah. Might stay in my stale netball gear, just in case.
Love Alice xx
From: Celia Beasley [email protected]
Thursday 19 May 7:48 PM
Oh Alice
I hope your mum’s on the mend.
Things are still horrible here too. Tonight Mum wanted Dad to sell the gun collection because, believe it or not, some of those guns are worth a fair amount of money and that just set Dad off. He was yelling and yelling about how he married a bad apple and how there’s no one to share the load with and how much pressure he’s under, and then Mum said she’d tell him about pressure – it was written in the new lines all over her face – and how he’s a terrible role model for us girls and how the veranda light needs changing but she’ll do it herself because ask a busy person to do things and you know you’ll get them done. And then she slammed the door and I could hear her crying in the bathroom. Cleo slept through it all, but Jaime came into my room and just sort of looked at me with this weird half-smile on her face. Even though she knew it was weird, I think she also knew that if she moved her mouth her whole face would sink in tears.
The only good news is that Dad’s been invited to a massive conference in Fiji. Mum said that even if she was invited she wouldn’t join him because it was irresponsible parenting to head overseas when a serial killer is still on the loose and possibly in The Area, and besides, her regrowth is 5cm long and she’d rather wear a scarf than use a home-kit on her greys again. Dad huffed and puffed, but they finally agreed that Grandma would come down to keep us company because I think Mum’s actually just FREAKING OUT about Hallie Knight. Cleo and I did a victory dance because we love Grandma – even with her great big woolly-cardigan-bum, her nicotine patches and her sewing.
Oh, I hope Dad’s business gets off the ground so the fights will stop and we can dye Mum’s hair and pay the school fees. Otherwise, Alice, we’re in trouble.
xCC
From: Celia Beasley [email protected]
Friday 20 May 7:48 PM
Hi Alice-in-Nunderland
No email from you for a few days. Maybe you’re already at Anika’s, watching them eat their way through the domestic pets.
Well this afternoon, we finally got some good news. Dad announced we’re selling the tennis court. This is not actually a bad idea as we never really use it. We should get a good deal, because apartments are going up all the time in Armadale and it means we won’t have to worry about school fees or Mum’s gym membership. It also means Dad doesn’t have to sell his gun collection. He’d sell me over his Purdey pair.
Dad even came out of the study tonight and sat at the table for dinner, then drove us down to the cinema to get honeycomb choc tops ‘just because’ and he hummed all the way there. Dad hasn’t hummed for a very long time.
Getting out to the cinema reminded me how much freedom we used to have and how little we have now. It’s driving me nuts. Jaime’s also furious because they’ve insisted on coming in to collect her from Sweeney Todd rehearsals. I suggested that as a protest she should stop singing. Fingers crossed . . .
x CC
PS **Newsflash**
Booty Girls have decided to shoot their clip in Hawaii instead! Ha! I laughed until Milo came out my nose. There is no way I’m getting bullied into anything like that EVER again.
From: Alice King [email protected]
Friday 20 May 9:40 PM
Hey CC,
I’m still here. I’ve been furiously writing up my Science lab report. I’m a bit of a slacker with my homework, unless I have an actual deadline.
It’s funny you mention sellin
g the tennis court – our cousins sold theirs, and the people who bought it built a townhouse. Anyway, the new neighbours had this daughter called Taylah and my cousin Theo had a real thing for her even though his parents thought she was Bargain Basement. But guess what? The minute he finished his VCE exams he moved in with Taylah’s family and about three weeks later, her parents came over and told Theo’s parents she was having a baby . . . and she did! Theo’s parents have NEVER recovered. Still, they made heaps out of selling the backyard even if it did cost them in other ways, like having a granddaughter called Montanna.
Tess’s still in the doghouse and surfing the net for schools that look like they’d take on a delinquent. Dad’s flatly refusing to pay school fees for her. Says he’s had it with kids who don’t appreciate a private education. So, it looks like Tess will have to find a tech school to go to if she doesn’t want to go fulltime at JB Hi-Fi for the rest of her life. Who knows what she’ll do. Tess’s completely irrational like Melbourne weather.
xA
From: Celia Beasley [email protected]
Saturday 21 May 5:07 PM
Hey Alice
I know you’re at Anika’s, but I had to let you know that I cut my hair today. Right off! Just snipped my ponytail while I was doing homework. Mum kept saying, ‘But Celia, why?’ I didn’t have an answer, except I was bored, which made her cross because she had to take me to her hairdresser to fix it up using all the money she’d been saving for her foils. Horses chew off their tails when they’ve spent too long in their stables, so maybe that’s why I cut my hair – a human version. Now I’m the only one in my family with a thick fringe. Mum says it makes me look like a beetle and she doesn’t mean the band but I like it because, beetle or not, I look NOTHING like Jaime.
Better go, bugalugs. Hope you’re having a beetle-ball down there on the farm.
xCCB
From: Alice King [email protected]
Sunday 22 May 9:44 PM
CC!!!! Hi!!!
I’ve been dying to talk to you. So cool you cut off your hair. Looking like a beetle will surely make you unemployable. No more wedgie green undies for you! And, to demonstrate my COMPLETE support, I’m going to hack off my ponytail too, and who knows, maybe we will even start a cult? Seriously. You’ve inspired me.
When I got back from Anika’s I was pretty blown away to discover that glutard Siobhan O’Connor had gone and got herself a jaffle maker too – one of those ones that fit about ten at a time. Plus she’s stocked up on much better deli items than me, apart from the rice bread. I’m talking Meredith Dairy goats cheese, top-drawer salami, and probably a stash of truffle oil, saffron strands and gold leaf too. Typical!! She’s put posters all around the kitchen and is ACTUALLY selling her gluten-free jaffles and people are ACTUALLY paying! I am furious. Especially to find that Daniele was just sitting there in our room twirling her hair watching pirated movies and did absolutely nothing to stop Siobhan AT ALL.
From: Celia Beasley [email protected]
Tuesday 24 May 6:56 PM
I can’t believe Siobhan O’Connor is competing with you, but I’m having the worst day, Alice, the very worst day.
Mum made me go to another screen test and it turned out to be for Chicken Lickin’. I’m sure she knew when she signed me up for it, but didn’t say. We had to chicken dance and I honestly tried to stuff it up by pulling a face and looking sort of barn-dance-inbred-hokey, but they thought I was funny and that I had guts and character, and I got the job. So now I’m going to be trussed up like a chicken on the side of 40,000 buses and billboards, right across the country. My life officially sucks.
Maybe Leilah could make a chicken work. Maybe Mia and Avril. Maybe even you. But if one thing’s for sure, 40,000 buses and billboards are going to spell social suicide for Celia Beasley and no amount of cash is going to make it any better. When I pull on those feathers, I’m going to be worse off than a battery hen. Feel free to dump me, Alice. I would. I might even dump myself.
From: Alice King [email protected]
Tuesday 24 May 10:36 PM
Hey CC
AS IF I’m going to dump you. Get a grip sista! What is your mother trying to do to you? And CHICKENS? I hope this doesn’t sound rude, but why doesn’t your mum go get a job or something? I mean, it sounds like you could do with the money and she must be bored if she can’t come up with anything better than humiliating her daughter. Do you think she might be jealous of you, CC? Intense thing to say, I know, but kind of pretty obvious that a chicken ad is the opposite of cool and you’re already feeling alone, and maybe, just maybe, your mum wants it that way? Sorry, I’m not such a big fan of your mother. I’m also not such a big fan of the fainter anymore, which is also a lousy thing to say because Daniele actually doesn’t do anything that annoying apart from being super quiet. But somehow her quietness is intrusive. It makes me feel weirdly guilty or responsible. I think I’d rather share a room with someone who at least speaks or is vaguely interesting – like Gloria Shelmadine from Minnesota, who IS very annoying but at least I’d get to learn a lot about America and eat giant gummy bears and aqua M&M’s. Anyway – I feel like Daniele has to go. I need a roomie with a little more personality. Might have to mention periods . . .
Hey – do you want to talk on the phone sometime? I’ve got a small amount of credit left.
Will write more soon, but my advice for having to do a chicken ad is exactly the same as for Booty Girls. Just say no – or if you need some intervention, call me.
xx
From: Celia Beasley [email protected]
Wednesday 25 May 7:02 PM
Alice,
I think you might be onto something with Mum. Maybe she does want me to be alone?
I can’t believe I didn’t pick it myself. It’s a bit like those murder mysteries where the Guy-Who-Did-It is always the ordinary man eating baked beans in the corner of the first scene – the one nobody suspects or even notices. People never see things close to home.
X
THE HERALD
Cocoon Killer targets Melbourne’s elite
Maya Batawitz
May 26
Police hold grave fears for 14-year-old Adeline Taranto, who is feared to be the latest victim of the Cocoon Killer. Adeline was last seen leaving school for her part-time job at Bakers Delight in Glenferrie Road, Malvern, yesterday afternoon at 3.45pm. She was reported missing after her employer called the Taranto residence to say that Adeline had not turned up for work and could not be contacted on her mobile phone.
Adeline is a Year 9 student at Ashbourne School for Girls, which is only 2km from Barrington Hall, another private girls’ school attended by Hallie Knight. Hallie was held captive by her abductor for two weeks before being drugged and dumped in a waste facility in Thomastown.
Police are appealing to anyone who may have information. According to Detective Senior Constable Maurice Bell, there are disturbing similarities between the disappearance of the two girls and that of Eltham schoolgirls Cornelia Walker and Esther Davidson two years ago. He said that ‘it opens up a new line of inquiry for police’.
Please call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
From: Celia Beasley [email protected]
Thursday 26 May 8:57 PM
OMG. Did you see this? Adeline’s in Year 9 at school and she’s the sister of Cleo’s friend, Carmella. I feel sick.
From: Alice King [email protected]
Friday 27 May 7:33 AM
Hi Celia
First morning of punishment. Just got back from cleaning the damn chapel windows and have about 500 more to go. My fingers are FROZEN! And all I could think about was that Adeline girl. Tess told me. Totally creepy. Even Tess’s freaked. Got to go and have a shower to thaw out before class. Will write more later. Actually, I’ll CALL you lat
er – probably tomorrow. Neeeeeed to talk to you. Have your phone ready!
x
From: Celia Beasley [email protected]
Friday 27 May 7:52 PM
Hi Alice
I’d love to speak to you. I didn’t actually recognise Adeline from the picture, but Cleo did.
Mum came and collected us early from school and then we made a massive gingery curry for the Taranto family. Tonight, we left it steaming in a big pot on the Taranto’s front steps, even though we could hear voices inside and there were police cars banked up along the street. The garage was open and the house just looked so dark and cold and empty.
Our household is now in official lockdown and Mum’s drawn up a list on the fridge headed ‘New Order,’ which names all the things we used to be able to do but can’t do anymore. Like babysitting the Handel kids next door? Banned. I was hoping it might extend to putting clothes on the line but she’s not falling for that.
Mum’s also made us unblock her on Facebook and she went straight onto Jaime’s wall and started commenting on the best-looking boys in the play rehearsal photos. Can you hear Jaime screaming about that one from up there?
The biggest change under the New Order is that Dad’s asked my cousin to help out – especially when Dad’s away. Dad wanted to cancel the conference, but he didn’t think he could with business the way it is, so hole-in-the-foot-Andrew seemed like a good solution. It does make me feel a bit safer, even if Andrew wasn’t much of a soldier (I mean, he did shoot himself).
Jaime hit the roof about that too, because “she IS” a babysitter and she’s “definitely too old” for one. Dad told her to think of Andrew as more of a bodyguard (who limps) and that if she wants to hit Broadway and the Big Time, she’d better get to used to it. She said she could cope as long as Andrew follows a long way behind and doesn’t talk into one of those headset mikes. Then she flounced off to do jetés in the rumpus room. Dad winked.
I’ve spent ages on the internet tonight, but there’s not much information on Adeline out there – just this aching silence. I did find one article where the police said it’s likely a serial killer is involved, but at this stage it would be ‘hasty to draw conclusions’ . . .